Safety advice main road (the United States)

The safety advice main road ( National Security Council or NSC ) is an administrative organization depending directly on the president of the United States. It has a role of council, coordination and sometimes of impulse on the subjects of Politics foreign, National security, and more generally on the whole of the strategic questions. It is in that an actor little known, but major, sometimes prevalent, foreign politics of the United States

It joins together under the articles the vice-president, the Secretary of State (equivalent of the Foreign Minister in the other countries), the Secrétaire with Defense and the to advise with the national security around the president. This one chairs it, while its administration is directed by the adviser with the national security. He can invite to it other members according to the needs.

He has as a function first to be a forum of exchanges making it possible to advise the president. For this reason, it meets regularly, according to the international situation and of the priorities of the president. The administration of the council has in load the preparation of these meetings general practitioners. Interdépartementaux committees (interdepartmental) also take place under the direction to advise it with the national security on precise sets of themes.

At the meetings of the council, the president can make decisions, translated by the adviser with the national security in the form of directives and that the participants must implement. For this reason, it became a tool of impulse of the decisions, coordination and checking of their implementation in the hands of the president, reinforcing his Executive power vis-a-vis the Congrès.

With the wire of the time and according to the personality of the adviser to the national security, it functioned like an administration with whole share, having a clean existence, becoming thus one of the actor-key of the formulation of the foreign politics of the United States, competing with the State Department and the Department of Defense.

During the existence of the council, the administration directed by the adviser with the national security dominated the other actors of the foreign politics, going even until exceeding its functions to formulate and impel with it only important decisions, sometimes without its partners being informed. At other periods, it lost influence, reduced to a little listened office comprising only a few tens of people.

Preamble

The NSC is difficult to apprehend for several reasons. Initially its real operation is based primarily on structures not envisaged in the Loi of the Congress creating the NSC, while the mechanisms thought by the legislator never have really fonctionné.
Ensuite, the term “safety advice main road” returns to four entities: a decisional forum bringing together the full members around the president, of the interdépartementaux committees (interdepartmental in the French-speaking countries), an administration charged in the beginning to prepare the meetings and its chief, the adviser with the national security. This last, generally selected for its competence and its convergence of view with the president, sometimes for his erased character, making it possible another actor to dominate the decision-making process of the foreign politics, played a very variable part during the temps.
Enfin, the sometimes abstract or secret character of decision making in the fields of national security always do not make it possible to describe role NSC as an identified and hierarchical structure.

To that the weakness of the studies carried out to date on the NSC is added. They are based on déclassifiés documents of national security, interviews of the actors and theoretical approaches. But none succeeded in providing a total analysis of the operation of the NSC.

This structure is thus complex and plays a subtle part but determining in the development of the American foreign politics. It moreover underwent deep changes during its history, bound primarily to the style of leadership of each president who followed one another in the Oval office.

Role of the safety advice main road

This actor with the organization and operation normally collegial actually became an actor with whole share of the foreign politics, personified by the adviser with the national security. As such, it then acquired an overall increasing influence not envisaged by those which governed its creation.

Organization and operation

The American foreign politics is founded on the principle of Séparation of the capacities between the president and the Congrès, although the capacity of the president is dominating in this field. The executive power is organized in department S (equivalent of the ministries in the French-speaking countries) directed by a Secrétaire (equivalent of the minister). The departments are directly responsible in front of a president decision maker (the collegial decision making of a the Council of Ministers does not exist in the American Constitution). In order to be able to make decisions concretely, the president has a executive office composed of several directions. The unit composed by the departments and the executive office is called administration .

The NSC occupies a geographical and institutional position central within the executive power. It is presented in the form of a structure on two floors. The first is the decisional forum composed of the principal persons in charge of the executive as regards foreign politics and safety. It is charged by the law with making after debate the decisions on the subjects of the moment. The ground floor is consisted of the interdépartementaux committees composed representatives specialized of each department. It meets on sets of themes questions and provides to the forum a broad range of analyzes and proposals when it needs some.

Position of the NSC within the White House

The NSC belongs to the Executive office of the president. Its members are located in the Bâtiment of the executive office Eisenhower, which is opposite the White House. This functional and geographical proximity is a first factor of explanation of the development of the NSC parallel at the rise to power of the executive power since the Second world war. The president knows that it can count on the honesty of an administration close to him, of which it modelled operation and the composition at the time of his taking of.

The decisional forum

The National Security Act of the June 26th 1947 amended the August 10th 1949 envisages the creation of a decisional forum composed of the president, the vice-president and Secretaries of State and Defense. In fact, its members often extended themselves to other actors such as the secretary with the Treasury, the Secrétaire with the trade, the president of the committee of chiefs of Staff ( Chairman off the Joint Chief off Staff or CJCS ), the Directeur of the intelligence services (which is also the director of the CIA), the ambassador of the United States with UNO. More recently the Directeur national information was added, the Coordinateur of the fight against terrorism or the secretary with the Internal security. Other specialized advisers can punctually intervene according to the covered subjects.

This forum has for mission of following a foreign politics and of integrated and coherent safety in the long term. The context of 1947 is indeed that of the assessment of the Second world war. Decision making was difficult during the conflict, and chair it Franklin Roosevelt personally had to play a part of referee. In addition, the Cold war which advertisement is required more than ever a policy coordinated well with the military apparatus, supported on a solid consensus within the persons in charge and take into account all the facets of the consequences of a decision.

This is why the National Security Act gives mission to the forum “of advising the president by the integration of the factors military, civil, interior and international of the national security” in “incorporating the various prospects expressed by the civil and military administrations like by the various government agencies”. The council also has the role “of allowing the military organizations, departments and agencies to cooperate with more effectiveness on the subjects implying the national security”. These provisions will practically never be applied. The meetings of the NSC became in practice the place where the president gives his directives more than the place where he consults the opinions and works out his decisions.

Informal meetings around the president indeed constitute the real place of decision making on the important subjects of the moment. The majority bear a name, like the Friday Morning Breakfast of the presidency of Jimmy Carter.

Moreover, of the specific committees of large decision makers can be temporarily created apart from the official hierarchy. They relate to precise questions and play a part similar to the NSC. The log book of the February 26th 1953 of Eisenhower (president of the United States of 1953 with 1961) provides the example of the establishment of a committee had hoc to study the creation project of the body of free volunteers on proposal of the NSC.

Interdépartementaux committees

In order to support the meetings of the decisional forum (or of what holds place of it in an abstract way), of the committees made up specialized representatives of the departments meet. They relate to a precise set of themes, and their day order is less depend on the immediate topicality than the meetings general practitioners. In this direction, they constitute and a production information system of analysis uninterrupted. They are chaired by the adviser the national security or the directors concerned of the NSC.

The objective is initially to collect the information coming from the departments, so as to be sure that no information, analyzes or important option is not ignored a White House. These committees provide a first precise study and possible range of solutions a widest. The reports go up the official channels in the shape of documents intended for the decision makers and called formulation of policy (Policy Paper) . Those can then make of them syntheses, used directly for decision making.

In return, the interdépartementaux committees receive the presidential decrees which they must implement within each department. They then play a part of coordination and checking of the application of the decisions.

The whole of these meetings are prepared by a small administrative team within the NSC. But the role of this team largely exceeds in the facts this simple prerogative.

An actor with whole share of the American foreign politics

The NSC passed from the statute of crucible of the formulation of the foreign politics to that of component to whole share of the final amalgam, while preserving a big part of its functions first. The reason is the fast appearance of an influential actor: the adviser with the national security, supported by an increasingly powerful administration, giving him the means of having a glance on the whole of the process of formulation and implementation of the American foreign politics.

The adviser with the national security

The function of advising with the national security is not envisaged by the National Security Act . It is Eisenhower (then president of the United States) which creates the station in 1953 in order to put at the head of the NSC a personality whose authority exceeds that of the very unobtrusive executive secretary. It is however under the following presidency, that of Kennedy, that the role of the adviser held by McGeorge Bundy really will continue (see part 2).

The creation of the adviser to the national security meets the need for the president to be able to be pressed on a trustworthy person. This one must be able to provide him a transverse, synthetic analysis and neutral because disengaged from the conflicts of interests. For that, it can be made the devil's advocate, making it possible to the president to weigh for and against of each option. It is also equipped with sufficient competences to be able to make sure of the good performance of the decision-making process (for example that the departments do not dissimulate a possible strategic option to him, but contrary with their interest as an organization). Once the decision taken, the adviser has the role of making sure that it is applied completely, without being edulcorated or denatured by those which are charged to implement it. It has for that of the important administrative means and a legal means: the presidential directive which it writes or supervises. The adviser is thus in the beginning a neutral character making sure of the good performance of the national security, in particular that the president holds well the real capacity vis-a-vis his administration.

Actually, the role of the adviser largely will exceed this simple framework. The reasons are due primarily to its proximity with the president.

First of all, the adviser is named directly by the president, the Congress not having any right to watch. None the federal structures (departments and agencies) can influence this choice, because no tradition of nomination exists on the matter. The president is thus free to choose a trustworthy person, with whom it maintains a close personal relation.

It is naturally that this personality traditionally selected between the election of the president (in November) and his taking of (in January) will play the part of 3eminence grise of a president sometimes little to the fact of international diplomatic matter realities and not very qualified. This privileged position of man of the president enables him to influence directly its decisions, of which it is in addition guaranteeing that they will be well applied. It then leaves the role of “honest broker” to try to make lean the decision according to its sights.

The adviser also has a glance on the diary of the president. It is him which decides of which subjects the president must be informed, who must present the problems to him. The example in 1969 of Lawrence Eagleburger, assistant of Henry Kissinger, prevented by its chief from approaching the president Richard Nixon to maintain it the situation to the Vietnam is for this reason eloquent. Thus the role of the adviser of the president extends. It is regularly brought to be made the personal emissary of the president near the foreign delegations. He can thus intervene on important, but long negotiations and requiring an attention of every moment that the president, constrained by other obligations, cannot allow himself. It was the case for example in Bosnia-Herzégovine in 1999 under the presidency of Bill Clinton.

Surreptitiously, the adviser being able will follow his own foreign politics in certain cases, then exceeding completely his prerogatives. It is the case of the secret diplomacy carried out by Henry Kissinger with respect to the Popular republic of China, before its official recognition by the United States in 1972.

The adviser must thus preserve a difficult balance between the role of guarantor of the application of the decisions of the president and that of special adviser of this last. A testimony of Anthony Lake, adviser of Clinton is lighting for this reason: “I made an error in the first 6 months of my station, when I tried too much to be an honest broker. I remember Colin Powell coming to see me by saying to me that I was more strongly to express my opinions”.

This situation is not without creating sharp tensions within the administration when the adviser becomes clearly in favor in his role of coordinator. The open conflicts with the departments are born, and the competitions are exacerbated between them. The adviser, instead of being a facilitator becomes a part with whole share on the chess-board. He is then a source of tensions, which leads to the disintegration of a public decision whose guarantor of coherence became a factor of instability. In these situations, the American foreign politics becomes chaotic and confused.

Administration of the NSC: a true agency?

The prospect for a management continues (and either only in times of crisis engraves) subjects of national security belongs to the thought of the legislator. The text of the National Security Act envisages in thus creation within the NSC of a “office for the basic conflicts intensity”. However, the text did not provide that the role of the administration of the NSC is as important as that which it quickly became. The administration is organized in offices by geographical areas and transverse topics (see the flow chart). It has a budget ranging between 6 and 8 million dollars, voted every year with the Congress by the Executive Office off the President Appropriations Act .

Its recruitment seeks to gather the best specialists in the various topics approached in its flow chart. In fact, many personalities making authority in their field and having exerted important responsibilities later, had a function to advise to the NSC. It becomes according to the word of David Halberstam a council of “Better and more brilliant” with the service of the president.

The concrete and visible result of the work of the administration of the NSC is the drafting of documents of national security. Harold C. Relyea distinguishes four original types from them:

synthetic studies on the great subjects of foreign politics and safety and on the great strategies implemented in these fields,
studies by great geographical area and country,
evaluations of the operation of the various implied organizations,
documents of organization and coordination of these structures.

In the beginning, the administration of the NSC has a simple mission of preparation of the meetings of the NSC. These documents are used as a basis of synthetic discussion, by incorporating the various points of view. With the wire of time however, they contain recommendations directly for submission to the president. Those make authority according to the influence of the adviser to the national security.

The synthesis of the principal committee is also written by the administration of the NSC. There still, one perceives an evolution going in the direction of a reinforcement of his capacity. At the beginning, these statements were written by the department concerned with the decisions in question, then simply reformulated by the administration of the NSC. It takes little by little charges the unit with it with their drafting. These documents called presidential decrees of national security arrive at the departments which have nothing any more but one role of executant. Lastly, the prerogatives of the administration of the NSC largely exceed the borders of the administrative territory. It is indeed the only one of the White House to be implied directly in the political life. Consequently, a part among it is seen allotting missions such as the preparation of a strategy of public relations, the defense of the foreign politics in front of the public opinion and especially in front of the Congress, or the writing of the speeches of foreign politics. Many advisers of the NSC thus give interviews to the press. The administration at this point is implied in the go concern, that Ivo A. Daalder and I.M. Destler judge that “the urgent one always will supplant the important one”. The flow chart of the NSC feels some and the administration of the NSC becomes the personal office of foreign politics of the president. This is why Andew Preston qualifies it “small State Department”.

The NSC is not an agency with the clean direction of the term because it has neither the totality of the operational means of it, nor legal competence. It however constitutes a true government of foreign politics and safety in reduced model, able to function in an autonomous way. It thus could be affirmed at certain times like the only real actor of the foreign politics (see low the part treating the NSC of the Kissinger period), and be even implied directly in certain even illegal clandestine operations (see the part on the NSC under Reagan).

An overall increasing influence

The NSC was essential like a major actor, sometimes dominating of the formulation of the American foreign politics. For that, it has vis-a-vis him the departments (in particular the State Department) which do not wish to give up their prerogatives. It often will leave victorious this competition, and will accompany rise to power by the president vis-a-vis the Congress on the stakes of international policy.

Bureaucratic competition

The NSC is an actor of a fight of influence within the administration (equivalent of the government) between the departments (equivalent of the ministries), but also within the community of the information between the agencies. The stake of this fight between the organizations is for each one among it to ensure its perenniality, then to reserve a maximum room for maneuver, with a minimal control on its actions, finally to exert the most important possible influence on the course of the things, and thus on the Décision S made as regards foreign politics. At each level of the decision-making process, until the final decision belonging to the president, each organization thus will seek to impose its views. Confronted with this administration, the president himself seeks to keep the control of the decision-making process and the decision itself. He also seeks to check that its decisions are really followed of effect.

Although being at the origin a neutral actor and exceeding the bureaucratic competitions, the NSC does not escape this rule. He has vis-a-vis him the other members of the executive office of the White House. The stake is to impose the subjects of national security and foreign politics like priority in the diary of the president. With regard to the foreign politics, the NSC is confronted with the State Department, which is the traditional actor in this field and at the Department with the Defense, which saw its prerogatives in this field widening with time. Other traditional actors such that the information agencies which are the CIA, FBI, NSA, NRO, etc, but also the principal private secretary of the president, the Chairman off the Joint Chiefs off Staff also seek to make hear to them voix.
Depuis the September 11th, 2001, of the new actors the such Directeur of the national information, the Coordinateur of the fight against terrorism, the department of the Internal security, the domestic security counsel must also position, sometimes in a certain confusion. The stake is then to impose its options while influencing on decision making.

The geographical and personal proximity of the NSC with the president, his central place and its increasingly important administration, give him decisive assets in the fight which the various bureaucracies maintain. It controls decision making with all its stages.

The fight of influence on the development of the American foreign politics was gained overall by the NSC. For example, the two outstanding actors of the American foreign politics of the Glorious Thirty are John Foster Dulles and Henry Kissinger. However the first was Secretary of State, and the second adviser with the national security (even if it will cumulate thereafter this function with that of Secretary of State).

But its rise to power cannot be included/understood without the emergence of a “imperial presidency” in the field of the foreign politics and that of the foreign politics itself in the American political diary, during and after the Cold war.

A rise to power related to that of the presidential function

As of 1945, the leaders the United States are conscious of entering a phase of confrontation with the the USSR. Consequently, they cannot join again with the Isolationnisme which they carried out before the Second world war. In 1947, the vote of the Marshall plan and the choice of the policy of Containment make lose any hope with holding of America continuing its Destinée proclamation far from the furies of the world. The president must thus be held informed with the daily newspaper and make decisions implying sometimes militarily the United States. Even at the time of the phases of relative fold (as under the presidencies Ford and Carter), one of the first actions of the day of the president is the reading of the report/ratio of information.

After the fall of the USSR, the number of internal questions concerning to the national security and having transnational connections increases. It is the case of the environmental questions, medical, but also of the challenges launched by the Nuclear proliferation and more recently by the international terrorism. In parallel, the traditional border enters the economic questions and the main road questions of security grows blurred in the world of after cold war. The NSC must then compete with actors more diversified, such as the national Economic council within the executive office of the White House, but also the Département the Commercial (on the law Amato-Kennedy for example), with energy (on the question of the safety of the energy supplies), with transport (on the question of safety in air transports after the September 11th, 2001, justice (on the question of the legal status of the held prisoners with Guatanamo), etc More than ever, the president needs a transverse structure able to give him a synthetic point of view and to make apply his decisions in increasingly many administrations to being concerned.

On the whole of these subjects, the president himself took the downstream compared to the countervailing power which the Congress represents. The check and balances envisaged by the Constitution largely inflected with the profit of the president, in spite of the attempts of the Congress. That gives to the president an important room for maneuver.

The NSC was the facilitator of this emancipation. Indeed, the president must be able to count on an administration able to provide him thorough analyzes and a range of solutions, including those which do not correspond to the majority political line with the Congress, those for which it will be necessary to find with the Congress a majority exceeding cleavages in favor, or those which it will be necessary to impose on a hostile Congress.

This tendency was reinforced since the medium of the Années 1990, when cleavages in favor traditional resulting from the cold war grew blurred. The positions of the elected officials on the attitude whom the United States must maintain with the rest of the world are strongly diversified, and it is not rare to find republican elected officials in the same school of thought as of the democratic elected officials.

Vis-a-vis this multiplicity from point of view, the president and his administration must of speaking as much with one voice and carrying out concert of the coherent actions. The NSC can then fully play its part of guarantor of the cohesion of the administration and defender of the interests of the president. That enables him to preserve its central place within the executive and to gain in influence at the same time as the president.

This irrefutable fact seems durably installed. According to the expression of Rothkopf. The NSC is “a genius which will not turn over in its bottle”. The role of the NSC and its influence largely varied since its creation.

Great changes of the safety advice main road

The evolutions of the NSC are primarily the reflection of the presidential style of each occupant of the oval office. With his taking up the duties, each new president reorganizes the operation of his close administration according to the way in which it approaches the exercise of the capacity. He also seeks to correct the dysfunctions observed at the time of the mandate of his predecessor.

The main features of the influence of the presidential style on the operation of the NSC are:

the nomination of an adviser influential and in favor or neutral and respectful of the official procedures;
of the abstract or structured processes of decision making;
of the missions centered on the development of decision making or the checking of the good application of the presidential decrees;
the predilection of the president for certain problems, certain departments and on the contrary its mistrust with respect to other structures.

This is why chronological cuttings are largely those of the successive presidencies. All in all, the evolution of the NSC is a slow rise to power followed by a prevalence on the foreign politics and of safety, then a certain confusion born of the style in withdrawal of two presidents. The abuses noted then lead to a repositioning of the NSC and a certain return to the sources.

Birth of the NSC: an objective and a compromise

As indicated higher, the creation of the NSC corresponds to the need for a command integrated at the dawn of confrontation growing with the the USSR. However, historical reality is that of the junction of the request of three actors between 1945 and 1947: the president, the Congress, various military commands.

The president Harry S. Truman seeks to centralize the ordinary decision making as regards foreign politics and safety, in particular by creating a single department in charge of the businesses of defense. After the rendering of the Japan the September 2nd 1945, the coordination committees of the State Departments, War and Navy (State-War-Navy Coordinating Committees or SWNCC) which managed the operations around the president do not have any more reason to often meet. He results from them a great institutional cacophony and competitions exacerbated in a context from reduction of the average soldiers used to overcome the forces of the Axe. The decision makers meet only in crisis period and arrive with their own total analysis of the situation and the means to implement to answer it. Each one then defends its vision according to its interests, which leads to a chaotic decision making.

The Congress is anxious deterioration of the safe situation and extent of the decisions which result from this. He seeks to limit the capacities of a president who adopts a firm attitude vis-a-vis in the USSR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt died, Truman is president since the April 12th 1945). For that, he wants to force it to take account of the opinion of all the members of his administration, in order to avoid too personal decisions.

The departments of the war (which chapeaute the US Army) and of the Navy, as well as the any news US Air Force are due to their prerogatives. The department of the Marine directed by James Forrestal is that which defends its independence most savagely and remains most restive with the idea of an integrated command. It is him which proposes a report/ratio written by Ferdinand Eberstadt recommending the installation of a structure interdépartementale called safety advice main road or council of national defense . This one would devote, in the spirit of Forrestal, the maintenance of the independence of the various departments with military vocation.

Truman accepts the proposal of Forrestal, n the other hand of the creation of a single department. It reaches at the requests of the Congress by creating a place of common decision making, n the other hand of the creation of a central agency of information (the CIA replacing the OSE). Thus the National Security Act is presented by the executive to the Congress, which agrees to vote it. The department with Defense is created in 1949 to gather the departments of the War and the Navy, as well as the Air Force. Besides these last three lose their statute of permanent member and official of the NSC by the amendment of the same year.

The NSC is thus at least as much the fruit of the bureaucratic competitions of the time that the answer to the challenges induced by the first steps of the cold war. Charles-Philippe David speaks even about a “chance mishap”. However, the originator and the lawyer of the American foreign politics remain the State Department.

The progressive positioning of the NSC in the institutions (1947-1961)

Right from the start the function of decisional forum of the NSC is not really used. Truman is wary of this fruit of the compromise describes higher. It uses it until 1950 like a simple advisory committee. Decision makings of foreign politics remain between the president and the State Department, the control of the military businesses between the president and the departments with military vocation. It is the Guerre of Korea which shows the utility of a system of decision making and integrated control. The foreign policy of Endiguement worked out by the State Department must be translated into concrete terms. The first major document of the NSCC, report/ratio NSC-68 will allow it. In addition, the military action must be controlled according to these political objectives. There still, the opinions of the NSC will make it possible Truman to dismiss a general Douglas MacArthur (then military official of the control of the operations) favorable to the use of the atomic bomb. During this conflict, the NSC meets each week Tuesday.

The administration of the NSC starts to be packed and settles close to the White House, in spite of the wish of Forrestal (he became the first secretary with Defense) to lodge it with the Pentagone. The director of mutual safety, created after the Mutual Security Act of 1951, becomes expert member of the NSC. In the same way, when a psychological body of strategy is created the same year, it is in close cooperation that he works with the NSC and carries out clandestine operations.

It is the following president, Dwight Eisenhower (1952 - 1960), which gives to the NSC a true administrative structure. The personalities resulting from the NSC start to play a part. Eisenhower creates in March 1953, on the basis of report/ratio of Robert Cutler, the station of advising with the national security (station which it will occupy itself thereafter). It is however Andrew Goodpaster, the executive secretary of the NSC which maintains a privileged relation with the president.

In spite of criticisms of the time against the bureaucratic heaviness of the NSC and the fact that it is the bureaucracy which decides in the place of the president, the facts showed that Eisenhower actually knew to lead its foreign politics and of safety in good harmony with its administration and its executive office.

Eisenhower however continues to make its decisions apart from the official meetings of the NSC. In 1956, for example, at the time of the Crisis of Suez, it meets in small committee with the influential Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and its advisers direct. The advisers of the NSC are invited only in a marginal way. Apart from the crisis periods, it follows its foreign politics in close cooperation with Dulles.

It is only under the following presidency that the role of the State Department, as a major and single actor of the formulation and the defense of American foreign politics, are called in question.

The NSC becomes a tool between the hands of the president (1961-1969)

When John F. Kennedy (president of 1960 with 1963) arrives at the White House, it names McGeorge Bundy as to advise without having precise idea on what must be the NSC. However, he discovers the extent of the disaster of the operation of Bay of the Pigs and the part which the NSC of Eisenhower played there. While agreeing to take the responsibility for it, it decides a major reorganization of the NSC corresponding better to its style.

It sets up then a structure of advisers based on an adviser influence managing the businesses in progress for the président.
Une completely renewed team and largely increased is recruited by the new presidency. This one is thus completely honest to the chief of the exécutif.
Enfin, the Situation Room managed by the NSC, sits of the meetings in times of crisis, is created. This Room Situation has average the techniques to direct the communications within the departments. These major changes make NSC an instrument with the hands of the president, enabling him to reinforce its capacity. Part of its members settle directly in the western wing of the White House.

The other major aspect of the Kennedy style is the prevalence of the meetings and the abstract groups not entering the official hierarchy at the top of the capacity. The official meetings of the NSC become rarer. A restricted NSC, the permanent group (Group Standing) , joining together a small circle around the president, is one of the major places of a largely collegial decision making. To this body committees ad hoc , created for a particular problem are added. It is a executive committee NSC (Executive Comittee or Ex COM) which thus exerts the leadership during the Crise of Cuba.

McBundy plays a part influence directly near president Kennedy. The consequence is the loss of influence of the State Department. At its head, Dean Rusk does not manage to stop this process.

Lyndon B. Johnson (president of 1963 with 1968) does not change this system basically. The abstract committees are maintained. They are henceforth called the groups of the lunch of Tuesday (Tuesday Lunch Group) and groups wise (Wise Men Group) , but play a similar part that under the Kennedy presidency. The adviser for the national security remains influential, even if the advisers of the NSC do not take part systematically in these informal meetings, and of this fact are cut of the direct access to the president.

This period is marked by the importance of the military questions with the NSC, because of the international situation and the Guerre of the Vietnam (who becomes extensive starting from 1964). This conflict which begins with enliser cut the president and his close relations advisers of the remainder of his administration. The NSC does not manage any more to play its part of advising impartial and coordinator with the departments. More and more, decision making is centralized around the oval office. Bundy resigns of its station of advising with the national security in February 1966. The president decides then only, and the end of its mandate is characterized by the opposition to progress in the management of the Vietnamese conflict.

The prevalent NSC (1969-1978)

The election of Richard Nixon (1968 - 1974) mark the one era beginning of prevalence of the NSC on the American foreign politics. Like its predecessor at the end of his mandate, it makes a point of leading the external businesses personally and of having all the control of it, in particular vis-a-vis the Congress. For that, it names like advising with the national security a man of which it shares the sights and with which it maintains a close personal relation: Henry Kissinger.

Nixon is wary of the bureaucracy in general and the State Department in particular. It names at its head William Rogers, an unobtrusive and known personality for its lack of competence. As of the January 20th 1969 (it took its functions on January 1st), a National Security Decision Memorandum (NSDM) removes the SIG chaired under the articles by the Secretary of State.

Kissinger consequently will control the whole of the decision-making process, of the preliminary analyzes to the presentation of the various options to the president and decision making itself. Manpower of the NSC grow to reach nearly 100 influential senior officials, being able to exert a control of the various departments by the abstract channels. The capacity of the administration of the NSC extends in all its fields from compétence.
Dans same time, the decisional forum and the interdépartementaux committees become purely formal meetings, which occupy the bureaucracy but do not influence the decision. On the other hand, the National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM) (prospective analyzes and influential recommendations) and the NSDM (that the departments must apply, to see higher) multiply.

This acquired control, Kissinger becomes the key character of the foreign politics (apart from the president). As an adviser for the national security, it receives the foreign delegations at the sides of the president, while the Secretary of State of which it is normally one of the functions is excluded from these meetings. In the same way, it leads the important negotiations abroad. It thus ties privileged relations with certain important foreign persons in charge (the Ambassadeur of the USSR Anatoly Dobrynin, the Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Rabin, Zhou Enlai in China, etc). To take again the expression lent to Kissinger in connection with Europe, its phone number is that of the United States when the foreign diplomats and political officials seek to contact the American administration. Kissinger uses for this personal diplomacy of the means to the height. Thus the NSC controls and utiliseles communications permanently, and more only in so much of crisis. The NSC carries out a centralized and often secret diplomacy then, using the “black channels” ( black Chanel ).

This domination reaches its apogee when Kissinger cumulates starting from the September 22nd 1973 the functions of advising with the national security and Secretary of State.

The fall of Nixon following the Scandale of Watergate does not start the prevalence of Kissinger. He remains Secretary of State after the election of Gerald Ford (president of 1974 with 1976). In November 1975, a new adviser with the national security is named. It is about Brent Scowcroft, a close relation of Kissinger and his former assistant of the NSC. The NSC enters then a short phase of retreat.

When Jimmy Carter takes her functions on January 1st 1977, it tries to return to a collegial formulation of the foreign politics. It also wishes to break with a system of decision making centralized around the president and lack Transparence. For that, it names Zbigniew Brzezinski like advising with the national security, and Cyrus Vance with the head of the State Department. These two strong personalities are decided to carry out their mission without giving up any of their prerogatives.

In the first years of the mandate, the NSC, pulled by the inertia of its administration, continuous to dominate the process. Casing prefers Brzezinski, nearer to its design of its international policy. Confusion starts to reign. The breakfasts of Friday morning ( Friday Morning Breakfast , collegial meetings of decision at the top), for example, are not the subject of any day order nor of any statement of conclusions. It results from it from interpretations different from its members, and thus from the implementations differentiated by their respective departments or administrations. The negotiations of disarmament SALT II progress thus with difficulty.

Competitions, confusion and skid (1978-1989)

The competitions between the NSC and the State Department take a disproportionate turning in the last part of the Carter presidency. The dissensions stumble on the invasion of the USSR in Afghanistan (1979) and on the business of the hostages of the embassy of Iran. Casing fails to give again cohesion and leadership with the decision-making process. It results from it a confused, not very readable and sometimes contradictory politics foreign American. Thus at the time of the crisis of the hostages of the embassy of Iran, Carter starts a dialog with the mode of the Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini as Vance wishes it, but ended up accepting with the general surprise the intervention recommended by Brzezinski, while at the same time this dialog is not broken.

These fights of influences continue under the presidency of Ronald Reagan (1980 - 1988). The style of the president is very disengaged, leaving an important room for maneuver to the decision-making process. Contrary to what occurred under the preceding presidency, these conflicts do not prevent the foreign politics remaining coherent, and from implementing certain major decisions. It results from it from important confrontations between the State Departments, Defense and NSC. The station of advising with the national security becomes unstable: 6 advisers follow one another during the 8 years which the two mandates of the Reagan presidency last.

In same time, the administration of the NSC forever be so plethoric: it counts 70 official and permanent senior officials. This true State in the State, little controlled, is implied directly and in an anarchistic way in certain policies.

It is in this context that is imagined and especially managed directly starting from the NSC a completely illegal clandestine operation. It is about the Affaire Iran-Countered. The business is transformed into scandal when it is discovered the November 25th 1986. The direct involvement of two advisers for the national security (Robert McFarlane and John Pointdexer) and of a member of the NSC, the lieutenant-colonel Oliver North is clarified by the investigations of a standing committee of the Congress, the Commission Tower. Its conclusions confirmed by the déclassifiés documents of national security depuisde the Commission are overpowering for the NSC: it seriously exceeded its role. John Poindexter resigns in December 1986.

This scandal is only the result of a tendency affirmed as of the Kennedy presidency: to use the NSC to circumvent the weight of the bureaucracy, then the normal functioning of the departments, finally the control of the Congress on the foreign decisions of politics. The NSC needs a serious repositioning.

The repositioned NSC (1989-2000)

It is only with the nomination like advising with the national security of Franck Carluci (November 1987), then of Colin Powell (autumn 1988) in all end of mandate that the operation of the American foreign politics becomes again measured. According to the recommendations of the Tower report, the NSC is reformed in-depth: half of its personnel is renewed, it does not have any more an operational role and the advisers working as freelance worker are prohibited. After these scandals, president George H. Bush (elected in November 1989) gives again with the NSC a role of simple coordinator. He exerts it successfully, in good intelligence with the departments and the agencies information, including during the crises (such as the Opération Right Causes with Panama in December 1989 or the first war of the Gulf).

The president himself is good expert of the foreign politics. He chooses a relatively homogeneous team of advisers, making it possible to follow a given but careful policy.

The adviser for the national security, Brent Scowcroft, remains influential but becomes again a neutral actor. It acts as complementarity with the Secretary of State James Baker. Decision making remains abstract and apart from the official framework of the meetings of the NSC. The abstract committee is called committee of the directors (Principals Comittee) . He works on the basis of report/ratio provided by the committee of assistant the (Deputies Comittee) . The operation of the NSC approaches thus that envisaged in the beginning.

This architecture is preserved overall under the presidency of Bill Clinton (elected in 1992). The difficulties encountered during the first years are the consequence of the disengaged style of the president and the absence of strong leadership within the State Departments and of Defense. The NSC functioned overall in a way similar to the preceding presidency. The principal committees are maintained.

However, during the second mandate of Clinton (1996 - 2000), the NSC becomes again more influential, at the same time as the president implies himself personally in the control of the foreign politics. It partly finds its role of cabinet of the president for the foreign affairs and of safety. At its head, Anthony Lake works however in good intelligence with the Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

A return at the origins? (since 2001)

The arrival of George Walker Bush the January 20th 2001 at the White House is the occasion of a new organization of the NSC. For the first time of its history, it is really used like a decisional forum. The meetings of Donald Rumsfeld (secretary with Defense), Colin Powell (Secretary of State), Dick Cheney (vice-president), Condoleeza Rice (adviser for the national security) and George W. Bush are the place of a collegial decision making. The competitions between the departments are weak because of massive arrival with the key positions of personalities resulting from the mediums néo-conservatives. They grow blurred after the Attentats of September 11th, 2001.

Manpower of the administration of the NSC are reduced of 30 %, and partly renewed for ideological reasons. Its organization is simplified. In addition, the meetings interdépartementales are very few and marginal. The meetings of the NSC as a decisional forum are thus real, but imply only the chiefs of the various departments, named by Bush.

The adviser and her administration play a role reduced in the development of the foreign politics. The system is dominated by the departments and especially the vice-president, without them being confronted with a real contradiction. That is all the more paradoxical as Rice has a role of 3eminence grise at Bush, and maintains with him a personal relation more than any adviser with the national security before it. Although it is not néo-preserving a history, it keeps a neutral stature, consolidating the president in his choices. “The mandate of Rice is not to dominate the process of decision making, only to so coordinate it with the assistance of its assistants” the NSC did not play its part of guarantor of complete information and reliable to the president, nor of reflection of the whole of the possible options.

On the other hand, Rice plays a part of lawyer of the American foreign politics and representing personal of the president abroad. She multiplies the voyages like the interventions in the American media, which is new for an adviser with sécurié national. According to Ivo H. Daalder, this simple role of spokesperson was done with the detriment of a cost-benefit analysis balanced and supported on diversified sources of the intervention appropriateness in Iraq. It also notes that the management of the after-conflict was entrusted to a group of ideologists of the Department of Defense, and has escaped with the control of the NSC.

A major actor tries without success to take the control of the NSC. It is about Dick Cheney, the vice-president. Having failed to have Rice under her direct authority, he manages all the same to take part in the Principals Comittees . Especially, it creates within its own cabinet a pole of influential personal advisers under the crook of Lewis Libby. Thus Cheney “creates her own NSC” This body nonofficial exerts a determining influence on the American foreign politics, in particular the decision of the invasion of Iraq of March 2003. When Rice is named Secretary of State, Cheney succeeds in placing like advising with the national security a man with him, converted with the néo-preserving theses: Stephen Hadley .

The homogeneity, the coherence and the legibility of the American foreign politics thus depend largely on the good performance of the NSC and its harmonious relations with the other bureaucratic actors. Unquestionably, the emergence and the important role of this central structure are the marker of a foreign politics largely led by the executive power.

Appendices

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